… they uncorked a stink-bomb of a game in New York. The winningest team in baseball played like the worst team in baseball. The Angels made four errors, officially, made a batch more mental mistakes that could have been errors and another handful that were brain cramps. They gave the Yankees six walks and allowed […]

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Fans probably will love this trade: Angels give up Casey Kotchman and minor-league pitcher Stephen Marek … and get Mark Teixeira. Sounds sexy. Sounds wrong. The Angels have been consistent contenders in the American League West in this decade, and one of the biggest reasons is this one: They rarely make trades like this one.

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Francisco Rodriguez, aka “K-Rod,” has vowed to test his value in the free-agency market at the end of the season. I know this concept agitates some Angels fans. “How can we go forward without our star closer?” Well, they can do it quite easily: By letting someone else sign him to a long and extremely […]

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Willie Mays Aikens was a rookie first baseman with the Angels in 1977, the one season I was the beat guy for the team. He was a big guy, somebody who could become a serious power-hitter, but I always worried about him. Not in a parental sort of way. More in a semi-concerned bystander sort […]

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This expression really bugs me. And you see it in newspapers and magazines, hear it on the airwaves … a lot. “Heart and soul.” As in, “he is the heart and soul” of this or that team. I want usage of this to decline about 90 percent. Because it’s used too often and, more important, […]

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OK, because they’re in Orange County. OK, they appropriated the “Los Angeles” name when their team has nothing to do with the city or county of that name. But the ball club … you have to love these guys. These guys, and last year’s guys and basically every team the club has run out there […]

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I’m at Angel Stadium for the first time this year, and I have a couple of concepts I want to broach. One is … what happened to Vladimir Guerrero? When did the Scariest Hitter in the American League turn into Little Bo Peep? Vlad went into this game hitting .246 with seven homers and 28 […]

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